FEAR
Fear (fir) n. 1.a. A feeling of alarm or disquiet caused by awareness or expectation of danger. b. An instance or manifestation of such a feeling. 2. A state of dread. 3. Concern; solicitude. 4. To suspect; I fear you are wrong. --fear'er n --fear'ful adj. --fear'ful-ly adv. --fear'ful-ness n --fear'less adj. --fear'less-ness n.
All of us as little children were introduced to fear. I'm still not sure that there wasn't a boogie man under my bed. That, of course, was what most would consider an irrational fear. Parents, however, felt it was perfectly rational to teach us the fear of God, some teaching this fear in harsher ways than others. People who were abused as children, in the name of God or religion, carry scars that are hard to heal. These scars create walls between us and our spirituality. These scars are further supported by fear.
As we grow older, some of us are more courageous than others, some have to fight harder battles, some fight battles within themselves. Some people are severely wounded in these battles, and some people grow even stronger because of them, thus the saying, "That which doesn't kill us will only make us stronger." When we have a fear to conquer, we're facing one of the hardest battles of all because our fears are very real to us. Fear can go to the other extreme and be a strong motivator. If we're afraid of losing our jobs, we may work harder. If we're afraid of dying of cancer, we might be more motivated to stop smoking or eat better. If we're afraid of dying and going to hell because we were a bad person, we will strive hard to follow our religious beliefs and be a better person.
Fear is a powerful entity. It has life. It is very real. Depending on the person and the circumstance, fear can either motivate and make one stronger, or debilitate and weaken us. So far, we see that fear is a very serious thing in our lives. What I want to talk about in this article is how using fear to motivate us to follow God can cause us great harm, pain, and suffering and actually block us from being the spiritual person that we are inside. Perhaps looking at this will help some of us heal. Perhaps it will help others raise their children without applying more fear into their children's hearts and minds.
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